Editing Short Stirling (section)

===Overview===
[[File:The pilots' instrument panel and flight controls of a Short Stirling Mk I of No. 7 Squadron RAF at Oakington, Cambridgeshire, February 1942. CH17086.jpg|thumb|{{center|Instrument panel and controls of Stirling Mk I}}]]
The Short Stirling was a four-engined [[monoplane]] [[heavy bomber]] designed to provide a previously unmatched level of strategic bombing capability to the [[Royal Air Force]] (RAF). It was powered by four [[Bristol Hercules]] [[radial engine]]s which were spaced across its mid-mounted wing.<ref name = "norris 4 5">{{harvnb|Norris|1966|pp=4–5}}</ref> The Stirling has the distinction of being the only British bomber of the period to see service that had been designed from the start with four engines - the Avro Lancaster was a re-engined, stretched-wingspan [[Avro Manchester]] while the Halifax was planned to be powered by twin [[Rolls-Royce Vulture]] engines but was similarly re-designed to use an arrangement of four Merlin engines in 1937.<ref name = "norris 3"/>{{refn|The Vulture engine which had been preferred for the large twin-engine bombers such as the Avro Manchester and the initial Handley Page Halifax design did not receive as much development due to focus on the Merlin and in service showed to have poor reliability.<ref>{{Harvnb|Mason|1994|p=329.}}</ref>|group=N}}

Although smaller than both of the pre-war American "XBLR"-designation designs (the 149-foot wingspan, 35-ton  [[Boeing XB-15]] and the 212-foot wingspan, 79-ton [[Douglas XB-19]]) and nearly as large as contemporary Soviet experimental heavy bomber designs{{cn|date=February 2023}}, the Stirling had considerably more power and far better payload/range than anything then flying from any British-based aviation firm. The massive 14,000&nbsp;lb (6.25 long tons, 6,340&nbsp;kg) bomb load put it in a class of its own, double that of any other bomber. It was longer and taller than its replacements the [[Handley Page Halifax]] and the [[Avro Lancaster]] but they were both originally designed to have twin engines.